INS Insecurity About Homeland Security

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 10 -- An INS official was kind enough to provide me with a copy of an internal Customs Service e-mail that contains a putative schedule for the merger of various agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security.

INS folks were disconcerted to read therein that on March 1 the first order of business would be "Reorganization takes effect, transfer Coast Guard, Customs, TSA, INS, FPS, ODP, and FLETC to DHS," but the very next item is "Abolish INS."

Of course the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, had also decreed that the Immigration and Naturalization Service would not only be transferred, but also would be split into two separate agencies — one for enforcement and the other for services. The agency that historically has been considered the most inept in town would theoretically thereby become more manageable. But officials had not understood that INS would actually be "abolished."

Worse, to their minds, was that after first being split between the DHS Bureau of Border Security and Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to the Customs e-mail, on July 1 the remaining enforcement functions of INS would be completely swallowed up by Customs: "Transfer Border Patrol and Immigration Inspections functions from Bureau of Border Security to Customs."

It's one thing to be jettisoned by the Justice Department, split in two, and subsumed into a brand-new department. But to have the smaller Customs Service completely take over all Border Patrol agents and immigration inspectors truly feels to some at INS like salt in the wound.

A Customs spokesperson did not return my call for comment.

Asa Hutchinson — the Drug Enforcement Administration head who's been nominated by the president to be the No. 3 guy at DHS, in charge of transportation and border security — met with reporters earlier this week, and I asked him about INS unhappiness. He declared that the Homeland Security law was "very clear in its language that INS would be abolished," but added in apparent contradiction that it would be "restructured."

He added that he had recently visited a crossing on the U.S. northern border and found that "the inspectors on the ground view [the move to DHS] as an exciting opportunity. … They see the mission as more important than anything else, more important than structure." He acknowledged it will be a time of uncertainty, but repeated, "INS has to be restructured."

A spokeswoman for the Senate Government Affairs Committee, which managed the legislation, pointed out that from the very beginning of discussions about a DHS, "the enforcement and services sections of INS were envisioned as being split into different directorates. The law, as signed by the president, calls for the Border Patrol to be moved to a new Border and Transportation division, while the services will exist under the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services."

The Directorate of Border and Transportation Protection, to be headed by Undersecretary Hutchinson, "shall be responsible for securing borders, territorial waters, ports, terminals, waterways, and air, land, and sea transportation systems of the United States, including coordinating governmental activities at ports of entry; and administering the duties of the entities transferred to the Directorate."